ARLINGTON STREET, _Dec._ 9, 1742.
I shall have quite a partiality for the post of Holland; it brought me
two letters last week, and two more yesterday, of November 20th and
27th; but I find you have your perpetual headaches--how can you say that
you shall tire me with talking of them? you may make me suffer by your
pains, but I will hear and insist upon your always telling me of your
health. Do you think I only correspond with you to know the posture of
the Spaniards or the _épuisements_ of the Princess! I am anxious, too,
to know how poor Mr. Whithed does, and Mr. Chute's gout. I shall look
upon our sea-captains with as much horror as the King of Naples can, if
they bring gouts, fits, and headaches.
You will have had a letter from me by this time, to give up sending the
Dominichin by a man-of-war, and to propose its coming in a Dutch ship. I
believe that will be safe.
We have had another great day in the House on the army in Flanders,
which the Opposition were for disbanding; but we carried it by a hundred
and twenty. Murray spoke for the first time, with the greatest applause;
Pitt answered him with all his force and art of language, but on an
ill-founded argument. In all appearances, they will be great rivals.
Shippen was in great rage at Murray's apostacy; if anything can really
change his principles, possibly this competition may. To-morrow we shall
have a tougher battle on the sixteen thousand Hanoverians. _Hanover_ is
the word given out for this winter: there is a most bold pamphlet come
out, said to be Lord Marchmont's, which affirms that in every treaty
made since the accession of this family, England has been sacrificed to
the interests of Hanover, and consequently insinuates the
incompatibility of the two. Lord Chesterfield says "that if we have a
mind effectually to prevent the Pretender from ever obtaining this
crown, we should make him Elector of Hanover, for the people of England
will never fetch another king from thence."
Adieu! my dear child. I am sensible that I write you short letters, but
I write you all I know. I don't know how it is, but _the wonderful_
seems worn out. In this our day, we have no rabbit-women--no
elopements--no epic poems, finer than Milton's--no contest about
Harlequins and Polly Peachems. Jansen[1] has won no more estates, and
the Duchess of Queensberry has grown as tame as her neighbours. Whist
has spread an universal opium over the whole nation; it makes courtiers
and patriots sit down to the same pack of cards. The only thing
extraordinary, and which yet did not seem to surprise anybody, was the
Barbarina's being attacked by four men masqued, the other night, as she
came out of the Opera House, who would have forced her away; but she
screamed, and the guard came. Nobody knows who set them on, and I
believe nobody inquired.
[Footnote 1: H. Jansen, a celebrated gamester, who cheated the Duke of
Bedford of an immense sum: Pope hints at that affair in this line,